By Maktoob
Nineteen of the 23 migrant workers from West Bengal’s Murshidabad district who were detained in Chhattisgarh on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals have been released, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam said.
In a post on X, Islam said the 19 workers from the Suti, Raghunathganj and Samserganj areas had been detained in Raipur since September 4 and were released after around a fortnight.
Islam told Maktoob that the reluctance of the current BJP-led state government to assist these people has prolonged the suffering of the people.
He said the remaining four workers continued to be detained because their names had been deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“Speaking Bengali outside our state seems to be tantamount to having to prove one’s citizenship,” Islam said, alleging that the workers had faced harassment despite possessing Indian identity documents.
He said the workers had been detained on September 4 and released only after a fortnight, adding that targeting poor migrant workers, “particularly those from minority communities”, for such scrutiny was “deeply concerning”.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.